On the 15th March last, just before the despatch of the Cabinet Mission to India Mr. Attlee, the British Prime Minister, used these words :

My colleagues are going to India with the intention of using their utmost endeavours to help her to attain her freedom as speedily and fully as possible. What form of Government is to replace the present regime is for India to decide; but our desire is to help her to set up forthwith the machinery for making that decision… I hope that India and her people may elect to remain within the British Commonwealth. I am certain that they will find great advantages in doing so But if she does so elect, it must be by her own free will The British Commonwealth and Empire is not bound together by chains of external compulsion. It is a free association of free peoples. If, on the other hand, she elects for independence, in our view she has a right to do so. It will be for us to help to make the transition as smooth and easy as possible.